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Oprah Winfrey sat down with the Obamas a few hours after the president released his long-form birth certificate and she wondered: Why did the president wait so long? "When it first came up, were you thinking, 'I hope I was born here?'" she asked. In response, Obama quipped: "I was there, so I knew I had been born there—I remembered it," Mediaite reports.

Obama said he had decided to seek a special dispensation to release the certificate after the birther controversy began to overshadow the debate on the deficit. "I said to my team, look, even though this is not usually what the state of Hawaii does, even though the Republican governor of Hawaii, the Democratic governors of Hawaii, all the various officials confirmed that I was born here, let's ask them for a special dispensation where they will go ahead and provide us with the original to see if we can put this to rest," he said. The full interview airs on Monday.